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Colorado gets screen time at Tribeca Festival

Director Daniel Junge, above, will be screening "Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary," below, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Consider them the Tribeca Four.

Because as the Tribeca Film Festival heads into full swing in New York City this weekend, Colorado will be well-represented by documentaries from Oscar-winning directors Daniel Junge and Louie Psihoyos, and producers Paula duPré Pesmen and Jim Butterworth.

The four take the spotlight at the increasingly high-profile festival started by actor Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal and real estate businessman Craig Hatkoff in 2002.

"You guys have quite a roster of films," said Tribeca's director of programming, Genna Terranova. "They're all in our Spotlight section, which are films that have some visibility to them."

"Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary"
(Provided by Junge Film)

While there's glamour in narrative features, the state's homegrown documentary-film community is doing its part to put the movie-making biz on notice about making films in the state.

"Colorado is experiencing a Golden Age of documentary filmmaking, and I believe it's only the beginning," said Colorado film commissioner Donald Zuckerman. "The community is energized, prolific, growing and less likely to move to another state," he added.

Since his arrival in 2011, Zuckerman has pushed to create and fund a tax-incentive program that would entice filmmakers to Colorado but also be attractive to a pragmatic, if film-loving, governor and a budget-conscious legislature.

In May 2012, the legislature approved a film-incentives bill, and the state currently offers a 20 percent cash rebate for production costs incurred here. The program was allocated $800,000 to give out in 2013-14.

The work appears to be paying off.In June, the indie film "Dear Eleanor," featuring Jessica Alba, shot in Longmont and Denver. In September, "Fast & Furious 7" set up shop near Salida and shot action sequences on Monarch Pass as well as Pikes Peak. According to the Office of Film, Television and Media, the production spent nearly $12.9 million.

The legislature recently approved the office's 2014-15 budget of $5 million for incentives and $500,000 for operating expenses. The allocation now awaits Gov. John Hickenlooper's signature.

Boasting two Oscar winners at Tribeca won't hurt the state's case any as it tries to woo more activity. Zuckerman said the Colorado contingent in New York will be inviting other filmmakers to its reception so they can be pitched to work here.

In 2006, Psihoyos' "The Cove" — about the annual dolphin slaughter in the Japanese whaling village — won the Academy Award for best feature documentary.

In 2012, Junge shared the Academy Award with co-director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for their short, "Saving Face," about women disfigured by acid attacks in Paksistan and the plastic surgeon who has helped them.

"Documentaries tend to cost less to make, which is a positive thing," says Zuckerman. "There's an untold number of stories to tell, and we have people here who want to tell them. And some of these people will want to make a narrative features, too," he added.

While the Tribeca-bound filmmakers have much in common, their films are decidedly varied.

Executive-produced by Butterworth, "Silenced" reveals just how personally and professionally devastating whistle-blowing can be. And Psihoyos uses his skill wedding vivid images to inventive story-telling in "6" to explore mass extinction and climate change.

Spirit of collaboration

The Colorado concentration of successful documentary filmmakers underscores how spirited collaboration and the right business conditions can build a thriving creative community.

"If I were to look at the past, I would have said a guy like Daniel Junge was going to pack up his family and move to L.A," says Zuckerman.

No more. These filmmakers see the location as a boon. A producer on the Chris Columbus-directed "Harry Potter" movies as well as the enviro-doc "Chasing Ice," DuPré Pesmen makes her home in Boulder. (She also founded the not-for-profit There With Care, which helps families with critically ill children.) So does Butterworth.

"You don't have to be in one of the bigger film cities," says DuPré Pesmen, who also praises her colleagues. "They're also very collaborative and supportive. We borrowed tripods and lamps to film Quincy Jones (for the Clark Terry film ) from Louie. We borrowed equipment from Davis. We borrowed a camera from Daniel."

"I like to say we're conveniently located between two oceans," Psihoyos said when the "The Cove" was expanding into the nation's theaters. Five years later, the director believes "Colorado is a great place to be making films.

"It's not a deep bench, but the people who are here are great. And people in the doc world in general are more collaborative. I feel like we're all on the same team. Even if we're working on subjects that are close to each other, you're trying to help others get to the finish."

In addition to the four films showing at Tribeca, there are other documentaries in various stages of the pipeline: Junge and co-director Bryan Storkel have been getting attention for "Fight Church," which will have its festival premiere in Boston later this month. Junge is trying to finish his Evel Knievel documentary in time for the Toronto Film Festival.

Alexandre O. Philippe's zombie-culture film "Doc of the Dead," which premiered at last month's South by Southwest, will open the Stanley Film Fest in Estes Park April 24.

Greg Campbell is at work on "Hondros: A Life in Frames," about Chris Hondros, a photojournalist killed while covering the uprising in Misurata, Libya.

Mitch Dickman's "Hanna Ranch" will play in New York and L.A. for Oscar consideration and opens at the Sie FilmCenter in May. The filmmaker's Listen Productions is following The Denver Post marijuana editor Ricardo Baca for "Rolling Papers," a feature-length documentary about the legalization of pot in the state.

"Clearly we've developed a critical mass of filmmakers doing it at the highest level," Butterworth says. "You start to develop the cottage industry we rely upon and then it feeds on itself. There must be something in the water. "

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